We can only take off our hats at Mary Robinson's decision to ban Conor O'Clery from Tibet and cry, Good! Excellent! Fine work Robbo! You're the girl for us! The head girl, be the hokey, and the very girl to put Conor O'Clery in his place, namely, in downtown Peking. Fools might say that he has been in China for two years, has visited Tibet and knows the place better than do either you or the RTE crew you've invited along to make this oh-so-searching documentary into your job as UN High Commissioner for thingummy, including, by the way, press freedom. He's the only Irish journalist who could possibly write about the significance (or otherwise) of your visit. Quite right. Ban the bastard.
I certainly know what you mean about sending out the wrong message. If only Irish journalists covered your visit to Tibet, then the world - which has been watching your every move with fascination - might think that you are there as a representative of the Irish people. Wouldn't want to be a representative of mere Paddies, now, would we? When I warmed my new little wigwam in the country recently, the last thing I wanted was for people to think that only locals were invited, or merely friends - giving out the wrong message, as you might say.
Heads of state
So I invited numerous heads of state: the Pope, the top-dog in the UN, what's his name? - nice fellow, dusky, you know the chap, got the job you were angling for - and various other dignitaries. Dalai Lama, etc. Spice Girls. Boyzone. Monica. The Dress. Alas, you didn't make the cut that time, Robbo. Weren't quite important enough.
Well, blow me down if I didn't get various sorry-can't-make-its from our beloved world leaders. Otherwise engaged. Peanut crop in Bongobongoland in trouble - that class of caper. Not one, not one major foreigner accepted my invitation to splash the booze over the new hutch. Now, I didn't want to give out the wrong message and let people think that my party was of interest to locals only. No, no, no, this was a world party.
Pele would be there. George Best. Michelle Pfeiffer. Richard Gere. Sharon Stone. The entire French World Cup winning team. Eddie Jordan. Pavarotti. Et cetera.
What sort of message would I be giving if the mere sweepings of my own personal acquaintance turned up? Dear me, the wrong impression altogether. Some might think that the most famous people in the world didn't give a flying fiddler's about me and my nest-warming party. It might actually be thought that in the absence of the great and glorious, only my humble neighbours were interested in me and little home. And we wouldn't want that, would we?
No film crew
So, naturally, I told the neighbours who turned up for the house-warming that sorry, they couldn't join in the festivities without the celebs of the world being there. In other words, Go Away. And not having anyone from RTE making this nodoubt searching, warts-and-all documentary about me, I didn't even have a film crew I could conspicuously invite in while shooing away my unwanted neighbours.
This seems to have been pretty much the case for you, Robbo, doesn't it? You were probably hoping that the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, CBS and BBC would be following your visit with bated breath: Clear the Front Page! Robbo in Tibet! But of course they weren't. A cruel mind might think that the media celebs didn't give a flying fiddler's about your visit to China any more than it gives a flying fiddler's about your shoesize; but we optimists haven't got such cruel minds. Surely your visit to China would be top of the world agenda, if it hadn't been for the poor beetroot harvest in Paraguay, or the two-car pile-up in Illinois (dog hurt), or the mange which is running amok amongst the moose of Minnesota.
Come another day, the media of the world would of course be watching your every move, once, of course, these major crises have passed; but in the meantime, you very properly would rather not be thought hicky and uninteresting by the Chinese with only the Irish media along during your visit to Tibet - isn't that so? Because I know the feeling exactly; and when the leaders of the world can take their eyes off whatever crisis it was that prevented them accepting my first invitation to warm the new pad, no doubt they'll come flocking to join me.
Press freedom And that'll be the day, the very same day that the media of the world will start paying attention to your movements, Robbo old thing. But in the meantime, treat Conor O'Clery with the disdain he deserves; the Chinese authorities will be most fascinated to see the respect a High Commissioner for press freedom and a former President of Ireland gives to a journalist and citizen of her Republic.
For they know as we know that it was your manipulation of their totalitarian power that made the ban possible; you, the High Commissioner for Human Rights. That ban could never have happened in a free country. Furthermore, within Chinese culture, obsessed as it is by status, to humiliate someone publicly is almost the gravest hurt you can do them; and when you are gone, he will have to cope with the consequences of your arrogance. Well done, Robbo. And, of course, a word of congratulations to RTE for acceding to the terms of your censorship. I would have expected no less.